The Black Informant

If you have the time today, please read George Curry’s editorial entitled “New Orleans Black on Black Racism” (user: thedist@rere.net / pass: 4C6U48). Here is an excerpt:

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Six months after Hurricane Katrina, some public officials in New Orleans are waving a “Keep Out” sign in front of some of its poorest residents. In many instances, the culprits are Black. If some of the statements made by New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas, an African American, had been uttered by a White person, he or she would have been lambasted as a racist.

“We’re going to target the people who are going to work,” Thomas said. “It’s not that I’m fed up, but that at some point there has to be a whole new level of motivation, and people have got to stop blaming the government for something they ought to do.”

He added, “There has been a lot of pampering, and at some point, you have to say, ‘No, no, no, no.’”

Instead of saying no to Oliver’s callousness, the council president was applauded by fellow council members Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson and Renee Gill Pratt.

Thomas’ rant was a slap in the face of the residents and the communities that embraced evacuees.

Nadine Jarmon, the federal receiver, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune: “If someone says, ‘Well, my income qualifies me for public housing and I want to come home,’ but they don’t express a willingness to work, or they don’t have a training background, or they weren’t working before Katrina, then you’re making a decision to pass over those people.”

But is that right?

While city officials ponder ways to exclude many of the poor, there is a different kind of discrimination in the housing market. (more…)

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What Curry fails to mention in his piece is that WHILE UNDER BLACK LEADERSHIP, the city has had the distinction of having a poverty rate twice the national average. Here are some other items:

The high school graduation rate in New Orleans is about 65%, below the U.S. rate of 68%, according to the Urban Institute. More than 77% of students participate in free- or reduced-lunch programs compared with 59% nationally.

Louisiana schools spent an average of $7,554 per student in 2003, compared with the national average of $9,136. In 2004, New Orleans students ranked poorly on basic skills. Third-graders showed up in the 35th percentile nationally and sixth-graders in the 28th percentile, according to the Council of the Great City Schools, a non-—profit group that represents the nation’s largest urban school districts.

Preliminary 2004 FBI statistics show that 4,468 violent crimes were committed in the city, more than the 3,784 reported in Fort Worth, a city with 140,000 more people.

“Dealing drugs was the economy of New Orleans,” says Wallace, who locked her front door even when she took the garbage out. (more…)

There there’s this:

When Houston Texas took in approximately 150 thousand Katrina evacuees, little was it thinking of crime. Being good Samaritans and opening up their city to refugees with no homes, stability and hospitality was utmost on their minds.

Things have changed in the past four months.

There has been an upclick in homicides and crimes in areas that make up many of the Katrina victims and other Houston citizens.

So much that the City of Houston is asking FEMA to pay for a Police Task Force. (more…)

Now, am I suggesting here that all poor people are criminals and don’t want to work? Of course not. There are many hard-working people below the poverty line who, like most Americans don’t engage in such destructive activities. But to ignore the fact that has been proven over and over and over again that issues like crime, an unwillingness to work out of government handouts, parents’ unwillingness to work with there own kids in their schooling–just about all of this taking place UNDER BLACK LEADERSHIP is just as commonplace in these situations, is in itself a “slap in the face” to those that know our people can do much better.

Yesterday I highlighted a major bank that is almost begging black folks to come in to get the financial support they need to start their own business. There are many other programs that I have highlighted on this little site that are doing the same thing. Some of us are taking advantage of such opportunities, but others still prefer to play the “nuttin has changed since slavery” song. If that is the case…

Then why the blazes do folks who feel this way STILL prefer to nurse off of the tit of this “racist” nation by staying here???

On this site, I have give example after example of black folks right after the abolishment of slavery who still managed to learn to read, build businesses, build cities, become inventors, maintain the family structure ALL WITHOUT GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE. Why were these brothas and sistahs able to do this under a much harsher environment? Now THAT is the slap in the face!

Not only have I worked with some of the poor in this nation, but my family and I have also been poor as well, so this does not come from someone who doesn’t know.

I am totally with the N.O. city council on this one. Those who want to come back AND WORK should be allowed to return. If N.O. is going to rise above its notorious past, they must draw the line somewhere.

But alas, having higher expectations for whites than our own people is pretty much the norm these days and everything I said is “beating up” on black people.

Here is something I just found in my local paper. I wonder if she qualifies as a self-hating black person?:

Dear Larry: As a background, I am a 38-year-old African-American woman with three children ages 4, 8 and 10. I am a single mother because my husband decided to sow his wild oats with another woman. I am not complaining because I am able to make ends meet. I have been blessed with a decent job that pays the bills with enough left over for a few extras.

I also come from a large family of six sisters and four brothers. My parents were married for 58 years. Dad worked, and mom stayed home to raise the children. This combination has been good for my siblings. We are all professionals or skilled workers with good-paying jobs. It is a joy for us to be together and hear how the family is doing. However, I have a younger brother, I will call Jim, who is an exception to this idyllic-sounding family.

Jim, who is very smart, has been in and out of trouble with the law all his life. He has spent a life using drugs and alcohol, fathered children that he will not support and won’t keep a job.

He has had good jobs, but after a short time, he was fired. The reasons for the firing are his lateness for work or disappearances for days without telling his boss. I know this is true because he was over at my house when he should have been at work. I told him he should report to work, and his response was — “I don’t feel like it.” Naturally, in a few days he was out of work again.

After he is laid off or fired, he starts with the mantra he was fired because he is black. Jim will accuse white people for every bad thing that has ever happened to him in his life. He will say things like blacks will never have a chance as long as whites are in charge, or blacks do not have a chance because whites want to keep blacks down.

I have tried to reason with him and point out that his logic is wrong. I use our family as an example that blacks can get ahead with dedication and hard work. This does not faze my brother. He merely calls all of us a bunch of “Uncle Toms.” He adds that “Uncle Toms” will make it in a white man’s world, but not true blacks that stand up for what is right.

I get so tired of trying to reason with my brother. He uses the foulest language, dresses like a hoodlum and has a hairstyle that is hideous. I cringe when he is around my children because I do not want them to adopt his ways.

Larry, I do not want to cut my brother loose. I am the only one in the family that even tolerates him. Jim owes all of my siblings, including me, money. My other siblings now let Jim know he is not welcome until he cleans up his act.

I am a religious person, and I feel I must keep trying to save him from self-destructive behavior. How can I convince him that whites are not his problem, and how can I get him to change?

– Lola (more…)